With the dramatic new Chace Center, the art school reaches outward Rhode Island School of Design’s new Chace Center is the physical embodiment of the 131-year-old institution’s effort to rebrand itself as a more open place.

"Black Womanhood" at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum and Cultural Center It’s an uneven show with a dour vision that leaves a mediciny taste in your mouth — and, I think, offers signs of a generation gap among curators.

Bread and Puppet Theater founder Peter Schumann is a national treasure. Maybe that’s why George W. Bush wants to bury him. Nestled in the verdant mountain valley of Glover, Vermont, way up in the northern part of the state, is a farm of rolling meadows, pine forests, and gray barns, all under vast skies.

Ron Pownall’s photos of the ’68 Democratic Convention It was August 28, 1968, and Ron Pownall could feel the storm brewing as he arrived at a Vietnam War protest during the Democratic Convention in Chicago.

‘Dead and Gong’ at Stairwell; plus, summer at Lenore Gray “Dead and Gong,” on view at Stairwell Gallery is a hodgepodge installation that feels a bit like a teen’s bedroom, the treasure horde of a Latin American crypt, and a squatter’s camp in the woods.

Boston’s Caribbean Carnival at 35 The exhibit’s 37 color photos from 2005 to 2007, plus three plumed headdresses, serve as an appetizer for the Carnival, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this month.

Bold leadership and an ambitious curatorial vision have vaulted the Peabody Essex Museum into a spot among the country’s best Could the Peabody Essex Museum be the Boston area’s most exciting art museum right now?

‘Wedded Bliss’ at the Peabody Essex Museum It's a show that stretches from va-va-voom to the solemn roots of marriage in our culture. And maybe says a bit about — if I dare be so grand — the magical, irresistible force of love.